Fiona

I think there is a decent case to be made that the systematic and irreversible destruction of contemporary art for no good reason whatsoever is a pretty cut-and-dry act of barbaric destruction of culture. And preventing that is generally considered a worthwhile thing.

For ADHD: YES! I’ m literally currently in the process of getting it checked, because of this!

But I was talking about autism, where you do not get meds or anything useful, which really makes it a useless diagnosis that will do more harm than good in most places. (One ceveat: If I moved back to Germany, I could probably get tax benefits because it counts as a mild disability, but until I decide to do that and stay there, it’s not worth the risk.

When I got my gender-dysphoria diagnosis, one part was to look into any other disorders I might have and OCD did come up. The problem is that a lot of these disorders have descriptions that are so relatable that you can feel genuinely insecure.

Even OCD sounded so relatable at that point, that what really ended the discussion there was when my psych asked in the end after I was saying that I wasn’t sure, whether my symptoms were clinically relevant, to which I immediately responded with “no”.

So yeah, it’s probably relevant to remember that most things come on a spectrum and that people can be OCD-adjacent without crossing into the boundary of where it is enough of a problem to be a disorder, but rather a mere personality quirk.

And that’s okay! In both directions!

I don’t care if Karen can’t eat them because she is allergic or because they taste like shit to her; if she hates them so much, then you are the problem for trying to make her eat something that she hates so much that she feels her only choice is to tell you it’s an allergy.

Also in some cases simple ableism:

I am highly certain that I have autism, for many reasons, up to and including the screener results when I got my gender-dysphoria diagnosis, but I have made an active decision against getting an official diagnosis, because it would not as of now bring me any advantages, but would for example rid me of the possibility to ever move to certain countries. So what would be the point?

The main struggles I have are in interactions with other people and that is getting a bit better these days and having a friend group that almost exclusively consists of neurodiverse folks who have learned to deal with some of my quirks and a girlfriend who has a diagnosis of both autism and ADHD helps a lot as well. Why would I then put effort in to get a confirmation for something where I kinda already know the result? It would be like taking an IQ-test (A comparison that my psych found quite fitting in fact).